Excellent point, and not something most of us would think through at the
spreadsheet level.
I worked in the pricing department of an insurance company back in the
nineties doing technical pricing work. I created a couple of Excel
spreadsheets for the underwriters to use to assist them with their
pricing work. 5+ years after I'd left the company an underwriter
thanked me for the spreadsheets - they were still using them. As far as
I know, they're still using them today, well over a decade after I've left.
>> This is the start of "code sprawl". Instead of spreadsheets being just
> data,
> they contain code (business logic) in them, and in effect, you have an
> "application".
>> An application is something you have to maintain for many years to come:
> debug, modify, extend, ...etc. They have a life of their own, and require
> time and effort to continue to exist. Application development is not a
> one
> time thing. It is an on going effort.
>> So, whatever you decide to replace that with, take this into account. For
> better or for worse, you have an application that needs to be maintained
> for the foreseeable future.